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Medvedev, Obama to discuss new arms control deal in November

MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian and U.S. presidents will discuss a news arms control agreement in mid-November in Singapore, the Russian foreign minister said on Thursday.

"The presidents will meet in the middle of November in Singapore, where they will be briefed on the progress made," Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference after talks with U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones.

Asked whether the United States had submitted any new proposals, the minister said, "there are some proposals pointing to progress at the Geneva talks," but did not elaborate.

Jones met with Lavrov earlier in the day for nuclear disarmament talks, which the Russian minister described as "very timely."

The Kremlin said on Saturday that Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama discussed the progress towards a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and the presidents expressed the hope a new pact would be ready by early December.

START I, the basis for Russian-U.S. strategic nuclear disarmament, expires on December 5.

The latest round of talks took place in Geneva last week. The presidents will meet on the sidelines of this year's gathering of APEC leaders, hosted by Singapore on November 14-15.

The outline of the new pact was agreed during the presidents' bilateral summit in Moscow in July and includes cutting their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.

START I commits the parties to reduce their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up strategic arms reduction agreement was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.